Archbishop Welby and the Fiery Cauldron of a Broken Family

One of the precious family letters treasured by Lady Jane Williams (the Archbishop of Canterbury’s mother) dates from December 1973, shortly before her son’s 18th birthday. It is written by Justin Welby’s housemaster at Eton College and is a frank tribute to the “tenacity” and “bravery” displayed by the young man during his difficult teenage years. The housemaster thought it especially remarkable how Welby had coped so well with his “family problems”, which had become increasingly acute, and the letter concludes: “Many a boy would have been driven off the rails completely by the problems which Justin has had to face, and I admire enormously the patience and wisdom he has shown in dealing with them.”

The latest Telegraph revelations about the Archbishop’s childhood are a fresh reminder that these “family problems” ran deep. Both his parents – Gavin and Jane Welby – were addicted to alcohol. They had eloped to America in April 1955 to marry in Baltimore, Maryland, with no friends or family to witness the event; two strangers had to be brought off the street to act as witnesses. It was nothing like a Hollywood whirlwind romance, and Jane immediately realized she had “made the most terrible mistake”.

By the age of two, Justin was living in a broken home. By the age of eight, he was sent away to prep school in Sussex and both his parents were deeply in the grip of drink, incapable of looking after him properly. Jane Welby’s life was rescued from the brink, after she signed herself into rehab in 1968, and broke the addiction. She is now a happily married, wonderfully gracious, highly esteemed octogenarian. The Archbishop has spoken this week of the crucial importance of the Christian faith, and the gospel of redemption, in turning lives of despair into hope. His mother is a brilliant example of that truth.

But Gavin Welby continued the downward trajectory. His behaviour was increasingly erratic. He could be volatile, irrational, dishonest and prone to shouting. Justin recalls: “You never knew what was going to happen. The experience of living with a parent who had a drink problem is …. very shaping as to one’s views of what human beings are like.” Their relationship was in meltdown. When Gavin died suddenly in March 1977, aged 66, from a suspected heart attack, Justin’s first reaction was “relief” and “liberation”, and then guilt for feeling that way. It had just been “all so painful”, he remembers. For 20 years he was unable to bring himself to look through his father’s scrapbooks because it was “intolerably painful, and for reasons I probably can’t analyse”.

Justin Welby, the public Christian leader we see today, has been deeply shaped and moulded by those chaotic experiences of his youth. Preaching recently in Barbados, he proclaimed: “Families are strange things. We may get on well or not get on at all. … But once a family exists, whatever we do we cannot escape it.” From the fiery cauldron of family breakdown has emerged a man of remarkable resilience and determination. It has implanted steel in his spine. He has few fond memories of growing up, and speaks of “the loneliness of being in a crowded boarding school, where you had to be very self-sufficient.” But Christian conversion, as a Cambridge undergraduate, has turned that self-sufficiency into God-dependency. Welby’s unshakeable confidence is shaped by his personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Traumatic events, like the death of his first child in a car accident in the Eighties, have only strengthened that resolve.

Professor David Ford has known Welby for many years and argues that personal suffering has decisively shaped his character and public engagement. Ford explains: “he can be vulnerable, not self-protective and therefore devastatingly honest. My goodness he can be! He just cuts through fluff or flab in a way that can be rather shocking. He won’t put up with pious nonsense.” Welby is an unusual public figure, Ford continues, because he has a “freedom from fear”. The Archbishop is not concerned by media image or whether his PR department can control a press story. That has been evident this weekend, in the way he embraced the new revelations.

Given the chaos of his early family life, surrounded by broken relationships, it is no surprise that reconciliation is one of the Archbishop’s key theological priorities – reconciliation between churches, between communities, between divided individuals. His favourite metaphor for the Christian Church is a family, and the Church is often even more dysfunctional than any natural family. Preaching to Christians in Hong Kong, Welby declared: “There’s an old saying in England, you choose your friends but you’re stuck with your family. And believe it or not, you and I are family. We are the family of God, and you’re stuck with me and I’m stuck with you, not just now, not just in this life, but for all eternity – so we’d better get used to each other.”

That Christian vision of a future in God’s family has helped the Archbishop to navigate the new revelations about the true identity of his biological father. His identity is rooted not in DNA or in family trees or paternity tests, but in knowing that he has a heavenly Father who has redeemed him and given him a new life and purpose.

This article first appeared in the Sunday Telegraph on April 10th 2016 and we are grateful for permission to reproduce it on Fulcrum.

3 thoughts on “Archbishop Welby and the Fiery Cauldron of a Broken Family”

Well I don’t think he was forced into this disclosure by the press, the circumstances and the longing to be completely honest would have compelled him. Of course he knew in 2013, he has had a while to absorb and pray about what he was told. Then he needed to pray for his own feelings, he had to make a choice, First and foremost he. Would have needed to Want to deal with it, then he would have walked that journey of how can I feel as though I am being honest if I have knowledge I with old from my wife and children and the church and even admitting his feelings to God. It is a difficult emotional journey. It is a journey that needs to be made in order to be healed, it would have been the double edged sword effect. I.e. Here he is having through his own struggles and with support reached the highest post in t he country how could anyone help him? Put yourself in those shoes, like a parent pastoral caring for people who then has his head messed with, then saying thankyoul God, but well because it is God you can do.it. After all God knew, so then the leading and right guidance God given directly or indirectly would all have led to this disclosure. It’s not like he had an affair though is it, but like all struggling victims it still carries at the least uncomfortable feelings. However he is secure in the knowledge that he has family friends God congregations members all over the world. However feeling deep down uneasy or as preachers put it dis- eased out of. Sorts is still a personal battle. That is the challenge. The press may have a lot . Of power, individual journalist may even be spirit filled but by the very nature of the spirit they cannot dictatevwhat happens when they print these things, and God well God he will use it for the famous phrase. Lessons have been learned. See what God can do..

We have seen how Justin Welby has coped with all the disasters or challenges thrown at him in life. I have witnessed such resolve before in other adults in different occupations, where the journey of the vulnerable walks side by side with an undeniable strength, an inner resource that comes from surviving all that is not understood alongside guilt anger and shame, and missed opportunities or opportunities which become distorted. I find it hard though on every level to ever see church as family ever again. That is if used ever did. In my mind family and business objectives are like Justin with his journey from oil to living water of life the two just do not mix. They make swirls and pretty rainbow colours but they stay two separate entries or compounds. It is possible for him to work on this model of church because he has managed to survive and create the family model independant of Church. He already had his own family when he entered into the church seriously. It is very important in terms of the business model of church does not comfort , Christ comforts when you can relate in time and space. Fellowship is a different thing to family though we mostly know that one easily can replace the other if that is what is desired, God however runs through both. It is sad that Church is no longer the “family of God ” it gives a restlessness, which cannot be repented, if there is no wrong i.e. family or business how can it be repented. Yet it brings about detachment from the humanity of church. Without making people to heavenly to be of any earthly use. I wonder if this problem can ever be solved, because once a Church goes down the business route they become dependant on the income from it. This has long been one of my concerns in terms of mission both home and abroad should people ever have to ask the question can I afford to go to church? The divisions are there those who can afford concerts and those who can’t , those who can afford to pay to enter and those who can’t. I still feel after 44 Years of being a Christian, that this very important issue has never been addressed properly, in fact it has got worse not better in terms of finances. Of course I understand about finances and how churches need them, but I also understand that Jesus overturned tables because of his anger at the effect on those who were excluded by it. I have made my point, I don’t really have any faith that the church the synod or any other Church society of any denomination will either take note or do anything about it, as a result a lot of money will be wasted and mis applied. Whilst people willing to give for nothing will be used for a while, but then because of the creation of employment it will become a paid post. On one level this is good but on another level it denies people the opportunity to serve freely without being used and abused and thrown away like a disposable human, overlooking the Spirits work in this. I really hope that when I press post that one is transferred is accurate here goes

In association with The Centre for Theology and Community and the Hurtado Jesuit Centre, this is a chance to get together, have a drink, meet some new faces and talk about theology. It’s 6.30pm-8.30pm on Friday 13th September at The Angel (101 Bermondsey Wall East, Rotherhithe, SE16 4NB).